The present invention relates to a fluid heater including a pipe through which a fluid flows.
It is known to heat liquid and gasses in order to vaporize them or to pressurize them. The known devices, however, have a slow response time. It takes a relatively long time to heat the fluid to be heated after switching on the heater, and after switching off the heater heating of the fluid is not immediately ended.
From German Patent Application 44 20 493 a fluid heater of the aforementioned kind is known in which the heating elements are electric resistance bands applied to the outer circumference of the fluid pipe. Due to the indirect heating of the fluid through the pipe wall, a fast switching on and off of the heater without delay of the heating action and of the shutdown of the heating action for the fluid is not possible.
From the documents German Gebrauchsmuster 19 06 191, German Gebrauchsmuster 89 13 683, German Patent 38 41 448 and German published document 12 69 748, heating elements and radiant heaters are known which, however, are not designed for heating a fluid flowing through a pipe and are also not suitable for this purpose.
The object of the present invention is to provide a fluid heater which can be manufactured inexpensively and which provides for a fast switching on and switching off of the heater.